Anyway, if you haven’t been following, a young woman, volunteering for the McCain campaign in Pittsburgh, PENNSYLVANIA, reported to police that she was robbed at knifepoint by Scary Black Man. Supposedly, Mr. Scary Black Man noticed her McCain/Palin bumpersticker and became so enraged that he beat her to the point of unconciousness and then held her down and “carved a B on her face.”

Drudge carried the story in screaming red type, and the attack prompted a personal phone call from the McCain camp, and a statement from the Obama camp.

The young victim even twittered the fact that she was a little nervous being “on the wrong side of Pittsburgh.” As soon as I saw the picture, I knew it was a hoax. Note the B is backwards, ala Morton Downey Jr’s botched swastika attack. I knew the police would suss out the truth in no time. But, what has me concerned is that this unstable girl might have been prodded or even hired to do this…after all, she is from Texas, and went to Pennsylvania to volunteer. McCain needs Pennsylvania or it is over. There is no scenario for him to win without that state. This seems so Corsi-like….

I am breaking out my biggest foil hat to don until this story is totally investigated…but, if it turns out she WAS hired for this, it will doom the McCain campaign to the worst electoral defeat in history.

“Ashley Todd, 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas,–Todd worked in New York for the College Republican National Committee before moving two weeks ago to Pennsylvania, where her duties included recruiting college students, the committee’s executive director, Ethan Eilon, has said.”

Does this mean she’s currently a college student who just decided to take a few weeks off? Or is she in fact a paid staffer? If she’s nuts, she’s nuts, but the McRovocaine operative who pushed the story (John McCain’s Pennsylvania communications director indicates that they were happy to use the story when it when it looked good for them. I would say that definitely makes it a party problem. If the guy’s a rogue, it’s his bosses fault for his being in that position.

In all seriousness, though, isn’t this the second or third time some Young Republican has mutilated him or herself and blamed it on some mysterious liberal? Is this a part of the Young Republican playbook?

“John McCain’s Pennsylvania communications director told reporters in the state an incendiary version of the hoax story about the attack on a McCain volunteer well before the facts of the case were known or established — and even told reporters outright that the “B” carved into the victim’s cheek stood for “Barack,” according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.

“John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain’s Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, “You’re with the McCain campaign? I’m going to teach you a lesson.”

“Verrilli also told TPM that the McCain spokesperson had claimed that the “B” stood for Barack.”

It’s like Son Of Rove is the clumsiest dirty trickster EVER. Wheels have come off the McCain Campaign. Sentient Republicans have got to wonder what is going on and want to distance themselves from the foul stench in the room.